


where nobody knows you, and nobody gives a damn

by snoot



Category: Dota 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7380769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snoot/pseuds/snoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way Riki sees it, he spends most of his time living below everyone’s radar, for better or for worse. Why not make it fun? His mother’s court is hardly the place for the cloak-and-dagger brand of intrigue that appeals to him; she makes a point of trying to be as open and honest with her people as possible. And Riki is tired of only ever burying his knife into the back of a stuffed dummy late at night, when none of the guards are around. He wants nothing more than to get out of the palace and do something real, where his talents actually matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Domoz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domoz/gifts).



> Here it is! The product of late-night headcanon ramblings via text and skype! I owe all of the inspiration for this fic to Domoz, who got me into DotA in the first place and helped me to construct the basic outline for this AU/fic! Happy (early) birthday, Domoz. ♥
> 
> The title is a line ripped from I'll Believe in Anything by Wolf Parade, because somehow I wrote almost 13k words without stopping to think about the title.

He knows he’s not supposed to be out alone like this.

It’s late in the evening, but the streets outside of the palace walls are still crowded as slow-moving merchants hesitate to pack up their stalls in order to catch the last of the straggling shoppers. The city guard always seem to have trouble enforcing the Palace District’s curfew,and Riki is certain that anyone who could identify him immediately is busy trying to control the lingering crowd. He’s used to being invisible, and he blends in easily with the throng of people pouring out into the lower districts.

He’s mapped out the route plenty of times during “official outings” to the edges of the city, filling in any missing gaps with the stories and directions he had picked up from the palace servants. Riki didn’t plan on getting caught -- once he was far enough away from the palace, he would be just another face in the crowd -- but even if he  _ was _ spotted out, it wasn’t like he would get into any real trouble so long as he made it clear just who he was. 

Though, come to think of it, maybe he  _ wouldn’t _ bring it up. Maybe he’d spend the night in jail, or wherever they threw him, just for the hell of it. If the timing was right, it might even be days before anyone notices that he’s gone.

Invisibility, even to his family, is kind of his  _ thing _ . It’s why Riki keeps his hood up even after he’s well out of the palace district and far from anyone who could recognize him without a second glance. He may be a prince, but he isn’t the prince that everyone in the kingdom is enamored with, nor is he the prince that his parents so ardently coddle. Rather, he falls right between the two of them, completely and utterly unnoticed when he wants to be.

(And sometimes, he’ll admit, when he  _ doesn’t  _ want to be).

Now, though, he wants to lay as low as possible. Riki passes quickly through the streets, which gradually turn from cobblestone to gravel to loosely packed dirt as he moves farther and farther away from the city’s center. There’s a bar in the little district just inside the city wall -- he’s overheard some of the servants talking about it on more than one occasion. It’s supposed to be a complete dump from the sound of things, but he’s also heard it said that the bar is more or less a hub for every questionably-employed person living at the outskirts of the city. Hitmen, bounty hunters, the occasional brave outlaw… It doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of place where a prince should be spending his time, which is exactly what makes it perfect.

The way Riki sees it, he spends most of his time living below everyone’s radar, for better or for worse. Why not make it fun? His mother’s court is hardly the place for the cloak-and-dagger brand of intrigue that appeals to him; she makes a point of trying to be as open and honest with her people as possible. And Riki is tired of only ever burying his knife into the back of a stuffed dummy late at night, when none of the guards are around. He wants nothing more than to get out of the palace and do something  _ real _ , where his talents actually matter.

This is going to be his ticket out.

 

\--

 

“So I’m standing there over his body -- his knife is still stuck in my shoulder -- and-”

“You’re shitting us,” someone objects, and Gondar pauses with one hand frozen mid-gesture. He glances between the faces in the crowd that had gathered to listen to his story, looking for whoever had interrupted him. One of the younger guys is leaning forward in his chair with his drink balanced on one knee; Gondar decides it must’ve been him. He’s seen the guy around before but doesn’t know his name or have any sort of impression of him -- or rather, he didn’t have any opinion until now, and his new opinion is decidedly negative.

“His knife is still in my shoulder, and I can hear the rest of his friends coming down the hall,” Gondar says, ignoring the interruption. “So it’s either cut the guy’s ear off now and climb out through the window, or-”

“You’re  _ shitting _ us,” the same guy interrupts, sitting up and tossing back the rest of his drink. Gondar glares at him. “You’re trying to say that you just walked right into their base and killed the leader of one of the most  _ active _ bandit cells in the kingdom by just-”

“I didn’t walk in, smartass,” Gondar hisses. “I said I broke into the cellar through the sewers. You might’ve heard that if you would just shut your mouth and listened.” The dissenter quiets down a little, settling back with his chin tucked against his chest and his eyes on his boots, but Gondar senses that the fight isn’t over. Some of the other people in the crowd cast flat, sidelong glances at the offender before looking back at Gondar, but no one says anything.

He waits a little longer to start talking again as if challenging someone else to interrupt him, but no one does. The only sound in their corner of the bar is the quick scrape of a chair as someone wanders off to find another drink and another patron takes his place. Gondar eyes the guy briefly (wearing a hood inside? It was more laughable than suspicious), takes a long pull off his drink, then leans back in his seat.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” he starts, “my only choices were cut a trophy and go out the window -- remember, we’re four stories up -- or fight my way out. And I’m already hurt--” He taps the spot on the front of his shoulder where the knife had been stuck just a day earlier. It’s still tender, but he manages to keep himself from wincing. “So I figure it’s smarter just to climb out. I can’t take the knife out or else I’ll bleed all over the place, which is no good, so I just leave it in and-”

“And you do a perfect backflip out the window and land on your horse, and the king himself is already there to thank you,” the smartass interrupts again. He laughs at his own joke; Gondar can’t tell if he’s drunk or just stupid. Probably both. 

He’s had enough.

For a few moments, everyone in the group is dead silent. Most of them are staring at Gondar, waiting for him to make a move. Fights break out in here all the time (it’s the sort of thing that tends to happen when you put this many of these types of people in a room with alcohol), but Gondar usually isn’t one to participate. He knows he isn’t the strongest one-on-one fighter. Still, the level of disrespect coming out of this guy’s mouth isn’t something he’s willing to tolerate.

“You’re acting like you want to step outside,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you wouldn’t have to be so jealous if you’d get out and do real work like the rest of us. Or is that too hard?”

Judging by the way the guy puffs up, he’s struck a nerve. Some of the other guys in the crowd laugh. Reputation is a pretty big deal for them. If you don’t have one, or if you aren’t in good standing, your word doesn’t mean much against someone else’s. Gondar vaguely wonders if anyone else in the bar even knows the guy’s name.

“Well it ain’t easy as shit like your bragging makes it out to be,” he retorts, but Gondar doesn’t miss the way his voice cracks in uncertainty. He doubts that it goes unnoticed by anyone else, either. One of the other guys sitting nearby, Hod, grunts.

“You think the Cat’s bragging, then you ain’t heard shit,” he says. Gondar meets his gaze for a second or two, giving him a slight nod. Hod clears his throat and spits onto the floor, barely missing the feet of the dissenter who seemingly everyone has turned against. “If you ain’t  _ heard _ shit, then you ain’t  _ done _ shit. That means y’aint welcome here.”

The other man, so incensed by Hod’s accusation, stands up so quickly that he knocks his chair over. He tries to lunge for Gondar but he stumbles as his foot gets caught on the leg of his own chair and he falls over. The crowd erupts into laughter -- even Gondar laughs, gesturing down at the man on the floor with the same hand that’s holding his drink. Hod laughs so hard that he starts coughing. In the midst of it all, the man manages to pick himself up halfway and scramble out, attracting the attention of nearly everyone else in the bar as he runs by.

By the time everyone stops laughing, Gondar can’t even bring himself to finish his story. He just shakes his head and sips his drink as the crowd disperses. Hod gives him a strong pat on the back as he walks by, still laughing under his breath. At the other end of the bar, a different conversation starts to pick up as the girl who does most of the entertaining around the place starts to halfheartedly pluck out a tune on her fiddle.

Gondar turns back around in his seat to face the table only to find someone else seated across from him. He recognizes the hooded guy (kid, really, although he can’t be more than a year or two younger than Gondar himself) who had joined the crowd a few minutes ago -- though it’s more accurate to say he recognizes the hood bunched up around the guy’s shoulders. He’s a satyr, like most of the city’s natives, and he’s staring right at Gondar with those wide, unnerving eyes that are so typical of his people.

“You need something?” Gondar asks. The satyr nods.

“Let me buy you a drink first.”

Gondar takes a moment to consider it. The guy’s tone suggests that he might be about to propose a job, but Gondar doesn’t like the debt angle that the people who usually buy him drinks try to play up afterward.  _ You owe me, now _ , they try to say, as if one drink is enough to get him to accept their shitty terms.

Regardless, he shrugs. It’s a free drink.

“Deal,” he says, and the satyr smiles.

 

\--

 

The satyr’s name is Riki. Gondar doesn’t ask for much else, but Riki has his own onslaught of questions. How long has Gondar been a bounty hunter? How long has he worked around the capital? Could he finish the story he was telling earlier?

Riki doesn’t outright say it, but Gondar can tell from his tone of voice that the kid is new to the whole thing. He doesn’t share his observation, nor does he readily offer answers to most of Riki’s questions. After a few more drinks, he gives in and finishes his story, albeit more straightforwardly and with less flourish than he had been telling it before. Riki is enraptured nonetheless. Despite so obviously being a complete beginner with this sort of work, Riki already knows a fair bit about the nature of the job that Gondar had been on. It’s possible that he could have been thinking about taking the job himself, but it’s good that he hadn’t. It wasn’t exactly beginner-level work.

After another few drinks, Gondar was starting to wonder if Riki had a job proposal for him at all. It didn’t seem likely. Gondar was already getting to the edge of drunkenness where he shouldn’t be accepting work, anyway. He’d had more than his fair share of bad jobs thanks to some late-night drunken conversations. He made his own personal rule about it after a while: six drinks, then he was off the clock.

He was nearing the bottom of drink six and quietly waiting for Riki, who had been buying all night, to offer him another. The conversation had died a few minutes ago after Gondar failed to give a serious answer about who had trained him, and Riki was just staring down into his own mug. It must have been nearing nine or half-past. All the free drinks had put Gondar in less of a mood to buy his own, and after taking another glance at Riki he decides that now is a decent enough time to close his tab and head home. He opens his mouth to say as much, but Riki suddenly looks up and cuts him off before he can even get a word out.

“Have you ever trained someone?” he asks. “Like an apprentice?”

Gondar looks at him for a second and then laughs, shaking his head. It makes his vision swim  _ just _ a little.

“Never,” he says. “Never wanted to. I’ve worked alone for too long. Don’t like other people being in my way.”

“So you’ve considered it, then,” Riki presses. Gondar downs the rest of his drink and shakes his head again.

“I have, and the answer is no,” he says. He already knows where the conversation is headed. “This is how I make a living. I don’t have time to slow down and teach someone else the basics when I have to make enough money to survive.” Riki looks back down into his drink, seemingly accepting the answer. Gondar takes his cue to stand up and leave before an actual request can be made.

“Thanks for the-”

“What if you don’t have to teach me the basics?” Riki blurts out, looking up again. Gondar stops.

“No offense, but I would almost definitely have to teach you the basics,” he says dryly. “You walked in here with a hood on. Do you know how cliche that is?”

“Come outside with me,” Riki says. “I’ll hide somewhere and you- you look for me. And if you can find me, then fine, I’ll go. But if you can’t… Then you have to train me.”

“You really want to go out there and play hide and seek in the dark?” Gondar laughs, leaning against the table, but Riki is completely serious.

It’s a ridiculous idea -- one Gondar knows he shouldn’t agree to… But he’s confident in his own abilities, and he’s confident that he’s read Riki correctly. The kid has never done this sort of thing before in his life; just in conversation, he’s already given away so much about himself that Gondar doubts he could keep anything hidden for too long. He turns to take a long look at the door, then back to Riki. He motions for him to follow.

 

\--

 

Riki skids around the corner and doubles over in exhaustion, breathing raggedly as he braces his arms against his thighs. Gondar comes to a stop just a few steps behind him. He’s out of breath, too, but doing a better job at hiding it as he leans back against the wall. Riki looks back over his shoulder, then down at the ground again. He shakes his head.

“I’m not going to lie,” he says, “that was close.”

“That’s what happens when you try to play games with the target,” Gondar says, but there’s no real heat to his words. Riki laughs -- the strain of it hurts his ribs, still sore from the fall he’d had just minutes ago. Being chased wasn’t really his strong suit.

“Yeah, well.”

“Yeah, well,” Gondar echoes. “Your real issue is getting spotted. Once they see you, you have a hard time getting out. You get sloppy.” The criticism is genuine; it’s delivered evenly and without sugar-coating. Riki looks back at his mentor and nods along. Focusing in isn’t easy -- the blood rushing through his ears is hard to hear over -- but he manages. “You have to be able to get far enough away before you can start assuming that they’ve lost track of you. Otherwise your real talent is completely useless.”

His real talent. He means Riki’s penchant for virtual invisibility. Given the proper circumstances, he can disappear in plain sight -- it’s how he managed to impress Gondar into agreeing to mentor him. After that night at the bar, Gondar had confided in him that he had been planning to go back on his word even if Riki had won the bet, which he hadn’t even thought was possible. But after spending almost a full hour searching the entire district only to return to the bar and find Riki waiting for him right outside -- where he had been sitting the whole time -- Gondar couldn’t say no.

It’s been almost three months since then. Sometimes Riki asks, teasingly, if Gondar regrets ever doubting him. He still hasn’t gotten a straight answer.

“You did spook the target, though, which isn’t good for business,” Gondar adds. Riki leans back against the wall beside him and slides down until he’s sitting on the ground.

“Who cares if he knows we’re coming?” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “Give him something to shit himself over for a few days. Your reputation precedes you, anyway.” He watches Gondar out of the corner of his eyes and smirks as his mentor looks away in embarrassment. 

Since they had started working together, Riki had begun to develop a habit of waxing poetic about Gondar’s exploits to anyone who was willing to hear the stories. Usually while Gondar was within earshot. Watching him humbly try to explain the story away while also pushing Riki out the door was a reward in and of itself. Gondar might not tell Riki much about his personal life, but he told him plenty of stories about jobs and hunts “for didactic purposes.” Riki was certain that at this point, he was coming to regret it. Affectionately.

“Being afraid of me and being afraid of me because he knows I’m coming are two different things,” Gondar says. “The sooner you learn that, the better. If you get cocky, it goes to your head. And then you get caught. And killed.”

Riki tries to shrug the comment off, but Gondar turns his head suddenly to look Riki square in the eye.

“Hubris,” he says seriously, and Riki bursts out laughing. The laughing  _ really _ makes his ribs hurt, and he groans involuntarily at the pain. Gondar gives him a cautious look. “I don’t need to take you to a doctor, do I?”

“No.” Riki shakes his head. One fall isn’t going to kill him. “You need to take me to a bar. I want a drink.” He almost offers to buy it in hopes that the promise of free drinks might make Gondar more likely to agree, but he catches himself. Someone living off of his salary and his salary alone can’t afford to pick up the tab every time they go out, and Riki isn’t keen on explaining that his pockets run deep because  _ well, believe it or not, I’m actually a prince! _

He’s known from the beginning that his identity was going to stay secret. Not only would it put him at risk of being kidnapped and held for ransom or any of his mother’s other inane fears, but Riki knows that it would make people look at him differently. Chances are, had Gondar known who he was on the night they met, he never would have agreed to this whole partnership. Riki isn’t sure what Gondar would say if he ever found out, but he doesn’t plan on ever having that conversation. It helps that Gondar never asks about the personal details.

The whole point of doing this was to get out of the palace and live a little, and he’ll be damned if he blows his own cover by buying a suspicious amount of cheap beer.

“Not tonight,” Gondar says after a few moments of consideration. He extends a hand to Riki, who uses it to pull himself up off the ground. “You just botched that job -- it’s bad luck to drink now. I’m tired, anyway. So you should just get on back to wherever it is you even live.”

Riki squints up at where the sun is just beginning to slip below the city’s outer walls. He has to get back to the palace eventually, but not just yet.

“Come on,” he whines playfully, holding a hand to his sore ribs for extra effect. “I’m hurt. Let me come back to your place, we’ll drink there. This is my dying wish.”

“You’re not dying,” Gondar sighs. He smiles anyway. “You just tripped over a potted plant.” Riki shrugs, twisting his face into an over-exaggerated grimace as he presses his hand even harder against his ribs. Gondar rolls his eyes. “Fine! I can’t even imagine how big of a pain in my ass you’ll be after the first time you get stabbed.”

“I’m sorry my pain is such an inconvenience to you,” Riki replies. Gondar laughs but doesn’t say anything, and they make the walk back to his apartment in amicable silence. 

They had been tailing their target through a neighborhood of warehouses tucked against the city’s south wall when Riki had completely-purposefully-and-not-at-all-on-accident signalled too loudly and given their position away. The bounty they were tracking was no one particularly important -- a small-time smuggler -- but he was apparently important enough to warrant his own security detail, who were more than willing to chase Riki and Gondar back to the edge of the neighborhood. Their hasty escape actually put them closer to Gondar’s place than their planned route would have, so the walk isn’t long. They stick to the back alleys (which Gondar seems to prefer mostly out of habit) and pass only a few people by the time they reach the back entrance of the building. Rather than go around to the front, Gondar simply shoves his way in through the back door.

Riki has known where Gondar lives for about a month or so, but he’s never been inside. Gondar has already explained to him that the boarded up windows and old shop front of the first floor used to house a flower shop, but that it closed years ago and no one else has moved in sense. The florist hadn’t really been a friend of Gondar’s but she’d let him stay in the apartment upstairs and told him that if he was careful about it, he could keep living there even after she left.

The inside of the shop is more or less identical to the outside -- chipped paint, cracked glass, and old wood. Riki barely manages to contain a sneezing fit, and the thick layer of dust covering every exposed surface makes his eyes water. Gondar is unfazed. Riki follows him through the door into the back room, then up a flight of stairs and across the landing to another door. Gondar unlocks the door without any flourish and heads inside without waiting for Riki to follow.

To say that the apartment is cramped would be an understatement. The first room seems to be a kitchen and sitting room rolled together, and Riki imagines that the curtained door on the other side of the room doesn’t lead to much else. There’s only one chair in the room, shoved into a corner facing the door, and there’s paper strewn everywhere. Riki takes a closer look at one of the pages as he passes by -- an old, faded bounty, with the bolded reward at the bottom circled in red ink.

“I don’t have guests,” Gondar says. He’s moved over to the cramped space that resembles a miniature kitchen and is rifling through a cabinet. Riki can hear the clinking of glass. “I don’t spend a lot of time here, either.”

“I can tell,” Riki says, looking pointedly at the low table on one side of the room. Half of the table is covered in papers, the other half in dirty dishes and dust.

It smells distinctly musty, but with underlying hints of some spice that Riki can’t place.

He helps himself to the armchair in the corner, which is surprisingly comfortable. Gondar watches him sit out of the corner of his eye while he pours a couple of glasses of some dark drink.

“So, about this job,” he says. Riki’s eyes wander over to the nearest wall, where a yellowed map of the city hangs. He notices that several of the district names are incorrect -- his father renamed a few after old folk heroes a few summers ago as part of some cultural festival.

Turning back, Riki almost jumps out of his skin. Gondar is standing only a foot or so away, arm extended to offer Riki a drink. Riki might be good at staying out of sight, but Gondar was completely silent when he wanted to be. 

It had to be the cat feet.

“The work day is over,” Riki answers. He takes his drink in one hand and balances it carefully on the arm of the chair. Gondar shoves a stack of papers off of a nearby stool and drags it closer so that he can sit on it.

“It’ll be over when we figure out how you’re going to fix this,” he says. Knowing Gondar, he already has four ideas about how to fix it, but he won’t share any.  _ There’s no value in a mentor just telling his apprentice what to do all the time _ , he argues.  _ Critical thinking builds character. _

“Just trust that I’m going to get it done.” Riki takes a sip of his drink -- it’s not quite like anything he’s had before, and it tastes overwhelmingly like cinnamon. He tries not to make a face. “He’ll probably leave town and head out into the forest to lay low. It just makes him easier to track.”

Gondar doesn’t seem quite satisfied with his answer, but simply shrugs and takes a deep drink. 

“I’ll get into talk with Hod and Jun tomorrow,” Riki says after a moment or two, conciliatory. “They watch the gates. They can tell us if he’s left town or not. We’ll redraw the plan from there.” He takes another sip of his drink and looks back over at Gondar, who’s smiling warmly at him. It’s a weird look, one that makes Riki’s throat feel noticeably tighter for a little longer than is comfortable. He fights the urge to stick his tongue out and settles for looking away in embarrassment instead.

Whatever this drink is, it burns as Riki knocks the rest of it back. He doesn’t even try to hide the way his nose wrinkles at the taste. Gondar laughs.

“It’s called Fiirit. You get used to it after a while.”

“It tastes like cinnamon and acid,” Riki says. His throat feels like it’s on fire.

“The second one always goes down easier,” Gondar replies. Riki hesitates for a moment, then holds out his glass for refill. “It’s popular back home. I used to be able to buy it at that outpost, the one out past the orchard outside of the city.” Gondar fills the glass to the brim and puts the bottle back on the floor beside his foot. “I haven’t been able to find any out there lately. Had to brew this in my toilet.”

Riki freezes, the rim of the glass already pressed against his lips.

“You’re shitting me.”

Gondar shakes his head, but isn’t able to keep the telltale grin off of his face.

They drink. They talk, too, about nothing of consequence. Most of their conversations are like this: devoid of anything of too much substance, yet somehow still full of  _ something _ . Riki likes it -- it’s comfortable. He’s grateful that Gondar doesn’t care enough about politics to ever bring them up, except for when it has to do with some distant kingdom that he visited years ago. Riki, conversely, has never left the city for more than a few days a time, and he relishes in Gondar’s more-than-likely-exaggerated accounts of far-off lands.

It feels like only minutes have passed, but before long the city bells are tolling out the late hour. Riki curses himself mentally. His face and neck feel hot from all the Fiirit, and he knows he needs to get back to the palace before he puts himself at even more of a risk of getting picked up for public drunkenness. Gondar walks him over to the door so that he can unlock the eight or so locks to get the door open again, then pauses.

“I had something for you,” he says. “Wait here.” He turns and almost trips over a low stack of books before disappearing behind the curtain to what Riki can only assume is his bedroom. A few moments pass wherein he just stands and listens to the sounds of Gondar digging through his things. After the light coming in through the dingy window on the far wall had become too little to see by, Gondar had lit a candle; it’s burned down to a stub now, leaving the room mostly dark.

Gondar pops back out from behind the curtain and makes his way back across the room, holding something long and flat out in front of him. Riki can’t see what it is at first, then realizes that it’s a sheathed dagger. He reaches out to take it with both hands.

“I found it lying around a while ago. It’s old, but I thought you could use it,” Gondar says. The sheath is worn and gives way easily as Riki slides the dagger out. The dagger itself seems just as old as the sheath, but still glints dully in the low light. “Honestly, I didn’t think you would fuck up this job.” Riki looks up at him, but Gondar’s smiling and there’s no hint of genuine malice in his voice.

“I’m full of surprises,” Riki says, but he’s still admiring the dagger and can’t bring himself to be half as much of a smartass as he usually is.

“Apparently. It was supposed to be like a victory present, but since I don’t know how long it’ll take you to finish this one…” Gondar laughs at his own joke. “You can just use it while we’re hunting him down again.”

Riki doesn’t know if it’s the Fiirit making his chest feel hot, or…  _ Whatever _ it was that made his throat tighten up earlier, but he doesn't want to think too hard about it. He slides the dagger back into the sheath and tucks it between his belt and his hip.

“Thank you,” he says seriously. Gondar shrugs it off, and they spend a few more moments just standing there staring at each other. Riki finally puts one hand on the doorknob. “I should… Get going.” Gondar nods.

“Come find me tomorrow, usual place,” he says. “After you’ve talked to Hod and Jun. We’ll plan the next move then.”

“Tomorrow,” Riki agrees.

The streets are empty as he walks back to the Palace District, but Riki keeps a hand on the hilt of his new dagger anyway.

 

\---

 

He hates being around the bar this early, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

Gondar hasn’t worked in about a week. It’s been just as long since the last time he saw or heard from Riki, and he’s starting to get more than a little worried. They had finished their last job together and parted ways for the night with the agreement that they’d both meet up against the next day to check the notice board for another job. Gondar spent hours waiting by the board, but Riki didn’t show. He even went back the next few days in a row just to be as careful as possible, but he knew that if Riki hadn’t come the first day, he wouldn’t come the second or third.

He hadn’t sent word about it, either, but Gondar doesn’t know where he lives and can’t just drop in to check on him. Normally tracking someone down wouldn’t be too big of an issue for him, given his skillset, but hunting Riki like that just… Didn’t feel right.

Gondar sighs and rubs his eyes, leaning his head against the palm of his other hand. The bartender eyes him but just keeps drying the glasses he’s been washing all morning. It’s so early that the two of them are completely alone in the bar. Gondar keeps meaning to ask after another job -- he has to keep working, with or without Riki -- but can’t bring himself to open his mouth.

Riki could be hurt. Gondar isn’t sure who could have done it, or how he could have gotten hurt otherwise. It occurs to him that he doesn’t know enough about Riki’s personal life or the kinds of people he runs with to make any assumptions, and he curses under his breath. All those months spent together and he’d never asked. Why?

‘Some fake attempt at professionalism,’ is the only answer Gondar comes up with. He finishes off his drink but doesn’t order another, even though he feels the situation warrants it. He never meant to  _ actually _ take an apprentice. He never meant to go soft on Riki either, but the fact that he’s so worried about his sudden disappearance means that Gondar is squarely fucked in that department. He has friends, or people he supposes the word ‘friend’ applies to, but… Not like Riki. If one of them disappeared off the face of the earth, Gondar wouldn’t bat an eyelash. It’s something that tends to happen in this line of work. But Riki wouldn’t just drop everything and go solo like that… Or at least, Gondar doesn’t  _ think _ he would.

He sighs again, waving the bartender over. He knows that he has to take another job, or he won’t have anything left to live off of.

He also knows that he heeds to start looking for Riki.

 

\--

 

“Has anyone seen Riki?”

Riki clears his throat to get his mother’s attention, but she doesn’t notice. Instead, she peeks behind the heavy curtains, as if he would be hiding behind them.

(To be fair, he  _ has _ hid there in the past.)

He clears his throat again, to no avail, then simply says, “Mother.”

She turns around immediately, the long, glittery fabric of her dress swishing with the momentum. Her eyes go soft, and she smiles.

“There you are,” she coos, hurrying over. She goes to run her fingers through his hair and he cringes reflexively (it just means that someone will have to come over and fix it all again immediately), then seems to think better of it and settles for gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve been standing here the whole time,” he answers. It’s the truth -- he wasn’t even  _ trying _ to avoid her. All around them, the palace servants are scurrying to and fro to make the final preparations for the day’s meeting. A coalition of nobles is to be coming in to discuss... Land reform, or something. Riki isn’t sure. He has no interest, and wouldn’t be here if his mother hadn’t asked him to be.

“Yes, well, you’re so quiet,” his mother says. The hand that’s on his shoulder moves to begin straightening the collar of his jacket. “I wanted to make sure I thanked you for being here. I won’t sugarcoat it: your father and I haven’t had the easiest time with these negotiations. Having you and your brothers around is a comfort to both of us.”

It wasn’t as if Riki could have  _ not _ been here. An event like this was hard to be unnoticably absent from. And not only that, but his mother had asked him to come. He could never deny her anything she asked for so earnestly. For all his complaining and time spent sneaking out and hiding, he still loves his family. So for the past week or so, he’s been more or less bound to the palace out of familial duty. He hasn’t seen Gondar since their last job -- in all honesty, he’s itching to get out again, but now isn’t really the opportune moment. Everything’s fine. Gondar will work in the meantime, and Riki will make up some explanation when he gets back. For now, he’ll spend his days around the palace, and his nights alone in his room with the dagger that Gondar gave him.

“With that said, I have my own final preparations to make,” his mother says, and he nods. “Go and find your brother Koji -- he has to be bored out of his mind.” Riki nods again and his mother kisses the top of his head before moving away and immediately engrossing herself in a conversation with one of the servants who’s carrying a large silver tray.

Riki finds his younger brother easily. Koji is sitting in the garden, playing with a little porcelain horse. His maids are sitting just a few feet away on a bench, watching -- Riki knows them from his own childhood and nods at them as he passes. He takes a seat in the grass beside his brother and accepts the little horse as Koji hands it to him. The boy is only seven. His horns haven’t grown in properly, and he’s missing several of his baby teeth. The gap-toothed smile he gives Riki is downright heart-melting.

“You can hold him,” Koji says, meaning the horse.

“Thank you,” Riki replies. He balances the horse on his leg. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to him.”

“Good. I like him.” Koji looks down and pulls up a handful of grass, then sprinkles it across his lap. One of his maids makes a quiet  _ tut-tut _ sound, but doesn’t come over to do anything about it. Riki pulls up his own handful of grass and adds it to the growing pile on Koji’s lap.

They play like that in silence for a while. Overhead, the noon bell rings out in the palace chapel. That’s his cue to get Koji cleaned off and back inside. Riki looks up in time to see a group of well dressed men walking with purpose down the ambulatory at the other end of the garden. Koji follows his gaze.

“Who are those men with the capes?” he asks. Riki stands up and pulls his brother to his feet. Koji’s wraps his hand around two of Riki’s fingers -- not really a proper hand-holding, but it’ll do. In his other hand, Koji is clutching his porcelain horse by the neck.

“They must be the men coming to the meeting,” Riki answers, squinting.

He doesn’t miss the way they scowl at him.

 

\--

 

Someone is pounding on the door.

Gondar is out of bed and pressed against the wall by the door before whoever it is has even finished the first round of knocking. His eyes are crusted over with sleep, but any trace of tiredness has left his body. He doesn’t remember grabbing the knife from under his pillow, but it’s already in his hand.

After a few moments, the pounding dies down. Gondar presses his ear to the wall -- he can hear the shuffling of feet on the other side. Quiet, but with an edge to it. Just one person with hooves. And they’re breathing heavily.

There’s not any reason someone should be coming after him for the last job. Everything was lowkey, and it all went according to plan. Gondar runs through a list of all the people he knows who have his address -- no one who would want him dead for no reason. Still, his grip on the knife tightens.

The pounding starts up again, weaker this time, then stops abruptly. Gondar listens for the sound of retreating footsteps, but moments pass in dead silence. Then-

“Gondar. Please.”

Oh.

_ Oh, fuck _ .

Gondar jams the knife into the wall so that he can use both hands to unlock the door. The third lock from the bottom sticks and he struggles with it for a moment before he actually manages to get the door open.

There’s hardly any light to see by, but he already knows from the voice that it’s Riki. His shoulders are slumped, and they shake with every ragged breath that Riki takes. His arms are wrapped around his own waist.

“You’re hurt,” Gondar says quickly, but Riki shakes his head with a little too much fervor to be believed. Gondar steps to the side to let him in, closing the door behind him and relocking it as quickly as possible. He moves across the room and fumbles to light a candle. When he turns back around, Riki is just standing in the middle of the room looking blankly at nothing in particular. 

Gondar gives him a once-over; Riki isn’t bleeding, but something is wrong.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” he says. “I was starting to look for you.” Riki doesn’t reply. His face is blank apart from the trembling of his lip. Cautiously, Gondar reaches out to put a hand on Riki’s shoulder. He doesn’t shy away, or really respond to the touch at all. His eyes are glazed over and Gondar notices now that he’s dressed strangely, with a fitted jacket he’s never seen before and a telltale lack of any of his other gear, save for the dagger strapped to his back. Gondar recognizes it as the one he’d given him a few weeks before.

“Riki,” Gondar says seriously, swallowing the feeling of panic that hasn’t abated since he was woken up by the pounding at the door, “you need to tell me what’s wrong. What happened.” Riki shakes his head and opens his mouth to say something, but it’s a few moments before he manages to get any sound out.

“I can’t say,” he says hoarsely. “I can’t talk about it.”

So he’s in trouble with someone. Riki is clearly terrified -- he’s on the run. Somewhere in the week he’d been gone, Riki must have gotten into shit with someone he should never have been getting into shit with. And now he’s here.

“Alright,” Gondar says, nodding. “Okay. It’s alright. You’ll be safe here.” Riki tears his eyes away from the middle distance and looks directly at Gondar who feels, if only for a moment, as if he’s falling into a bottomless abyss. His heart is pounding.

“Okay,” Riki says quietly. He still hasn’t let go of his own sides.

“Okay,” Gondar echoes. “Okay. Uh.” He looks around the room, then back at Riki. “Take my bed. Try to get some sleep. I’ll sleep in the chair out here and keep an eye out. No one will get in.” Riki nods but doesn’t move. After a few beats, Gondar uses the hand he has on Riki’s shoulder to guide him over to the bedroom, using his free hand to pull the curtain aside. Riki shuffles over to the bed, seeming not to notice as Gondar unbuckles the dagger from his back and lays it on the bedside table.

“Your jacket,” he says. Riki seems confused for a few moments, then shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to Gondar. It’s silk. He spends a few seconds admiring the material before folding it and tossing it at the foot of the bed. He gestures for Riki to get in and then pulls the sheets up over him.

For a while, Gondar just stands there looking down at him. Riki’s eyes are fixed on the far wall, but Gondar doubts that he can see that far in the dark. His hands are clenched into fists by his head.

“Are you alright?” Gondar asks. Riki takes a shaky breath.

“Yeah,” he says, obviously lying. Still, Gondar respects his answer and turns to leave. He pauses in the doorway with one hand on the curtain.

“I’ll be just out here, okay?” he asks. Riki doesn’t answer, but Gondar hears the sheets rustling as he nods.

He leaves Riki alone in bed, pulling the curtain behind him. The candle is still burning in the middle of the room. Gondar takes it and sets it down on the shelf beside his chair to get situated, then blows it out. His eyes adjust to the low light easily and he keeps them trained on the door.

After a few minutes, Riki begins to cry. He’s struggling to stay quiet and choking on his own sobs. Gondar wipes reflexively at his own dry eyes.

He already knows he won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

 

\--

 

Sometime around three in the morning, the crying stops. Gondar figures Riki must’ve tired himself out. After that point, he feels much less guilty about sneaking in a cat nap but still finds that he isn’t able to sleep for long. He wakes up with an even bigger knot of worry sitting in his gut.

Gondar decides to just let Riki sleep in. He takes a quick peek behind the curtain to check on him but the bed is just a messy pile of blankets and pillows, with Riki hidden somewhere underneath.

For a while, Gondar just putters around his own apartment with no idea what to do. If Riki is in some kind of trouble, this is probably the safest place for him to be. He hadn’t said anything about who might be after him, though, so Gondar isn’t sure if it was wise to leave him alone or not. He spends most of the morning sneaking peeks behind the curtain and going through old job offers and bounties just to keep himself busy. He even manages to halfway clean the apartment before he decides that enough is enough -- Riki can’t sleep all day.

It’s a little after noon when he leaves the apartment, sure to look back over his shoulder for anyone suspicious hanging around where they shouldn’t be. Despite his paranoia, the coast is completely clear. If anyone is looking for Riki, they almost certainly don’t know where to find him.

Gondar cuts through the back streets to the district plaza, where he buys a few servings of some kind of steamed dumplings from a vendor before making his way back to the apartment. The anxious voice in the back of his head quiets down when he sees that the door is still locked just like he left it. He isn’t quiet about unlocking it, thinking that if Riki was awake, he should get some kind of warning that he was coming in.

The door opens on an empty room. The curtain is still pulled.

Gondar sighs, setting the food down for only long enough to relock the door. He shoulders his way past the curtain and into the bedroom, where the lump in the bed hasn’t moved. He sits down carefully so as to avoid Riki’s legs.

“Hey,” he says simply. “Get up. I have food.”

The blankets move only a little.

A few moments pass in silence before Gondar leans over to put the food on the table beside the bed. He puts on a hand on what he thinks must be Riki’s shoulder and shakes it lightly. The blankets move again, and Riki pokes the top of his head out. His eyes are still red-rimmed and puffy, and the sight makes something in Gondar’s chest twinge with… Empathy? Guilt? He isn’t sure.

“I have food,” he says again, quieter. Riki looks over to the package of dumplings on the table, then back at Gondar.

“Not hungry,” he answers. His voice is muffled by the blankets in front of his mouth.

“You have to eat something.” Gondar gives him a look that he hopes doesn’t come across as too harsh. They hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds before Riki lets out a quiet sigh and sits up. He accepts the food that Gondar passes to him and they eat in silence.

Riki keeps his eyes fixed on his food, and Gondar takes the opportunity to sneak glances at him. The rest of him looks just as tired as his eyes would suggest. His shoulders are slumped, and his hair and beard are both an unkempt mess. What he said about not being hungry must have been a lie, though, judging by the way Riki licks his fingers clean before passing the empty packaging back to Gondar.

Knowing that Riki’s had something to eat lifts a weight off Gondar’s shoulders. The next step is getting him to explain what happened. If he’s going to keep Riki safe from whoever’s after him (the wording of that thought does something strange to Gondar’s gut), he needs to know just who it could be. If it was a matter of debt, they’d need to work on paying it off. If it was a matter of blood, well… Gondar would find a way.

He opens his mouth to say something but Riki suddenly closes the distance between them and throws his arms around Gondar’s shoulders. His horns make the hug a little awkward but Gondar manages to get one arm around Riki’s back -- the other arm, still holding their trash, is pinned between them.

And Riki is crying again.

Not just crying -- wailing. He presses his face against Gondar’s chest and screams with so much anguish that Gondar thinks he might be sick. Riki’s knots his fists up in the fabric of Gondar’s shirt and Gondar mimics the motion, hoping that it’s somehow soothing.

He doesn’t know how to do this. He lives alone, works alone, and suffers alone. Gondar has had his fair share of troubles and frustrations, but he doesn’t think he’s ever vented them to someone else in a way anywhere close to this. His skillset is tailored for coldness and calculation, not tenderness. He thinks back desperately to time spent with his family or with old boyfriends, trying to find some kind of comparable experience but coming up empty-handed.

So, unsure of what to do, he just holds Riki while he cries.

It goes on for what feels like ages and after a while they wind up horizontal, with Riki curled up on his side and Gondar wrapped around his back. In any other situation the positioning would have felt awkward, but as it is neither of them are in a rush to move. Riki’s sobbing eventually tapers off into a lot of sniffing and hiccuping, then into feverish sleep.

Gondar lays beside him, awake and unmoving.

 

\--

 

The next three days pass similarly. Riki cries less but doesn’t return to his old self, and in fact only seems to grow more distant. Gondar dares to press him for details about what happened but doesn’t get any direct answers. It isn’t long before it starts to frustrate him.

He hasn’t been working for fear that Riki would need him at home, but that can’t last. In a last ditch attempt to get Riki up and out of bed, Gondar brings up the idea of taking a job together. He tries to hint that the money could help the both of them, still unsure if Riki’s problem was related to some kind of debt. It didn’t seem like too much of a stretch to think that Riki could have talked up a big game to the wrong person and now owed some kind of proof, or worse. It didn’t help that the only thing that Riki had told him about what happened was that he had made it out alive, which sounded almost more like a guilty omission.

Gondar can’t sit around and try to put the pieces together if Riki won’t give him anything to work with. He doesn’t do a very good job of hiding his frustration, either, growing short-tempered with Riki’s seeming inability to even get out of bed. It comes to a head on the fourth day when Riki turns down the prospect of going out for a job. Gondar says some things that he doesn’t quite remember but knows were too harsh, then leaves in a rush before Riki can respond.

Outside, it’s started to rain, and Gondar makes his way down to the bar with his hood pulled up against the chill. He can’t tell if the crowd inside is because of the weather or some other reason, but he doesn’t ask. Instead he takes a seat at the counter and waves the bartender over. After all these years, Gondar still hasn’t learned the man’s name, but he’s learned Gondar well enough to know which type of wave means ‘drink’ and which means ‘work.’ He brings over the folder where other patrons bring in the flyers and notices they pick up around the city and leaves Gondar to sift through it.

He’s busy comparing the rewards for two different bounties when he feels a hand on his shoulder and reaches instinctively for the knife at his hip. The booming laugh behind him and the imploration to “Relax, Cat,” tell him that it’s just Hod and Gondar lets out a quiet hiss. The man takes up the empty seat beside him and casts a trained eye over the papers in Gondar’s hand.

“You in the market for work?” he asks. Gondar doesn’t answer. “Surprised you’re not taking that royal bounty, considering the target.”

“Details?” Gondar asks. He keeps his eyes on the bounties he’s holding but isn’t able to hide the way his ears perk up at the word ‘royal.’

“You know, with the coup and all,” Hod says, picking at his fingernails. Gondar turns his head to look, belying his curiosity. Hod laughs. “Don’t tell me you don’t know about the coup. Where the hell have you been for the past week?”

“Busy,” Gondar says, bristling instinctively. He never cared for politics to begin with, but he hadn’t expected something that big to happen while he was looking after Riki.

“Well, royal family’s out,” Hod explains. “Dead, actually. Or, most of ‘em are dead. Assassinated by the nobles what took over the new government -- who knew the rich pricks had it in ‘em, right?” He pauses to laugh again. “Anyway, it’s got somethin’ to do with land, or titles. Dunno. Doesn’t affect me much so frankly I don’t give a shit.”

“Then what’s the  _ bounty _ ?”

“Huh? Oh.” He flicks an empty peanut shell off the counter in front of him. “Well, like I said only  _ most _ of the queen’s family died. Her and the king, and the two princes and I think maybe some cousins. But there was a third prince, unaccounted for. The new government wants him. Alive.”

“You got the notice?” Gondar asks. He goes back to looking through the folder in front of him. Regardless of whatever price they put on the prince’s head, it isn’t really his type of job. Too many people all searching for the same person. Still, when Hod takes the notice out of his pocket and smoothes it out on the counter, Gondar glances at it.

Then does a double take.

The reward is huge, but not what catches his eye. In the middle of the poster is a large, detailed drawing of a familiar-looking satyr. His name is printed neatly under the portrait: Riki, Middle Prince of House Tahlin.

 

\--

 

Riki didn’t think it was possible to feel any guiltier than he already did, but Gondar, always teaching him new things, had showed him that he was wrong.

For a while after Gondar leaves, Riki just sits uselessly in bed, unable to bring himself to move. He genuinely  _ wants _ to get out and go to work like Gondar suggested. He would give anything to just go back to normal, working with Gondar and sneaking back home late at night with his family none the wiser about where he had been, or that he had been missing at all.

He never thought that his invisibility would save him the way it had. When he shuts his eyes, Riki can still see what he saw from where he was hidden under the long table against the wall in the ballroom where it all happened. Sometimes he feels like he’s stuck reliving those moments even when he knows he’s awake and safe in Gondar’s bed. Part of him is still in that room, still watching his mother’s body crumple to the floor, still hearing his father begging for his life while the family’s most trusted servants just turned their heads and let it happen.

It doesn’t feel real. Gondar has been asking him what happened for days now, but Riki still can’t bring himself to say anything. There’s just too much to explain. How he lied about who he was, despite never using a fake name. How he was made to watch his entire life fall apart right in front of his face and somehow be the only one to walk away from it. How he had come to Gondar’s house without thinking, certain that he only had one true friend in the world.

So when Gondar tells him that he can’t keep sitting around while Riki doesn’t even try to get back on his feet, Riki doesn’t blame him. 

He blames himself.

He knows he doesn’t deserve the kindness, and he can’t think of anything he could do to even begin to repay his friend. Frankly, he doesn’t even feel like he deserves to be alive. He shouldn’t have made it out of the palace that night. It didn’t make sense that his family could be lying dead on the floor of the ballroom while he was lying safe in bed just mere miles away.

But then he thinks back to just a few days ago, when Gondar had lain beside him and just… Held him. So much has happened to him in the past week that Riki can’t stop and process how that one act had made him feel, but he knows that he owes Gondar more than words can express. So he tries to express it through action.

Riki gets out of bed slowly. Gondar had given him clothes (albeit ill-fitting ones) to wear considering that Riki had nothing but what he had shown up in; his own clothes are folded up on top of the dresser, but after a brief mental struggle Riki decides he can’t put them back on. He’s afraid that just touching the silk will send him into another panicked flashback -- something he knows he won’t be able to handle if he’s going to get up and pretend to be at least somewhat normal.

He washes his face in the basin beside the dresser and then finds that he’s run out of things to do. Trying to clean up the apartment might be a nice gesture, but it seems that Gondar has done his own cleaning in the past few days. Riki is afraid of throwing away something his friend needs, anyway. So he spends a few minutes looking through Gondar’s bookshelf -- most of the books are in a language he doesn’t know or recognize -- before moving to rifle through the kitchen cabinets in search of something to eat.

No sooner has he opened the first cabinet than he hears the sound of the door unlocking behind him. He turns on his heel in time to watch the door swing open; Gondar, on his way in, seems taken aback by the sight of Riki up and out of bed. He recovers quickly and shuts the door behind him, turning to lock it again with a sense of practiced urgency. At least he doesn’t seem angry anymore.

“You were right,” Riki says after a few moments of a silence that strikes him as being more than a little awkward. He’s still wearing Gondar’s shirt, which is big on him -- he fights the urge to avert his eyes by looking down and playing with the hem. “Before you left, when you said-”

“Riki,” Gondar says seriously. He finishes locking the door and comes over to where Riki is standing in the tiny kitchen. He’s fishing around in his pocket for something.

“No,” Riki says, shaking his head. “You were right. And I owe you a lot of answers.” Gondar completely ignores him in favor of the piece of paper he pulls from his pocket and begins to unfold.

“Did you know they’re looking for you?” he asks.

Riki’s stomach drops. He swallows hard to try and hide it. There’s no way -- Gondar doesn’t know.

“No one’s looking for me,” he says, cringing at the way his voice cracks. Gondar finishes unfolding the piece of paper and holds it out to him. His own face stares back, and there’s his name printed right under. Followed by an absurdly massive amount of money.

_ By order of the provisional government _ , the bounty begins, but Riki can’t bring himself to read the rest of it. He shakes his head. Tears well up in his eyes.

“No one’s looking for me,” he repeats. “I-”

“Half the people I know are going to be looking for you,” Gondar says. Riki shakes his head harder, and Gondar takes the bounty from his hands and tosses it to the floor. He takes both of Riki’s hands in his own.

“I didn’t tell you,” Riki says, as if Gondar doesn’t already know. He’s intending to apologize but he can’t make the words come out through the sheer panic that’s beginning to envelop him.

“We have to leave,” Gondar says. “I have to get you out of this city.”

 

\--

 

Gondar packs quickly. Riki sits on the bed and watches him, clinging numbly to a pillow. It’s obvious that Gondar has a lot of practice with this sort of thing. He’s already decided that they’ll leave just after nightfall, and once he finishes packing he comes to sit on the bed, facing Riki.

“I need you to tell me what you can,” he says.

And Riki does.

There are details that he leaves out, but he runs through the story from beginning to end as completely as possible. He starts with the night he met Gondar months ago, explaining that he was just trying to find some kind of life outside the palace. He leaves out everything Gondar already knows from the time they were together and skips ahead to the week they had spent apart. Some things are hard to explain -- his mind has become a weird place where things are blurry and clear at the same time -- but he tells Gondar about the coup, and about his family.

Gondar just nods along silently, not commenting or asking questions, and Riki is grateful for the silence.

When he’s done explaining, Gondar reaches out and clumsily takes his hand. Riki tries to smile but doesn’t have much to offer. Together, they sit and wait for the sun to set.

 

\--

 

They leave under cover of darkness. Riki manages to put his own clothes back on; he’d wanted to leave his jacket behind, but Gondar insisted that it was too much of a trail, so Riki folded it up at the bottom of his bag and resolved to throw it away or sell it at the next possible opportunity.

Sneaking out of the city like this almost makes it feel like they’re out on another job, but the way Gondar stops and looks around at every single street corner is a jarring reminder of what’s going on. They don’t encounter anyone else on their way to the city gates. 

The gates themselves are locked, and impossible to get through without attracting the attention of the guard. The gates aren’t their goal, though. They hug the wall as they make their way down a cramped side street until they reach the smaller, rusted gate that they’ve used on jobs in the past. It was one of the first secrets that Gondar showed him when he first started mentoring Riki -- a considerable number of people in the city’s underworld knew about the gate and used it to get in and out of the city at any hour, with virtually any kind of smuggled good or stolen valuable. 

Riki stops and keeps watch while Gondar fiddles with the lock. The dangerous part of the side gate is that it’s loud, so they only push it open far enough to squeeze through. Gondar closes the gate again once they’re on the other side, laughing under his breath.

“If people knew I told you, of all people, about this gate…” he says, shaking his head.

“I never would have told my father,” Riki says, voice shaking. There was a reason he never wanted to tell Gondar who he was. Sensing his error, Gondar turns and puts his hands on Riki’s shoulder, looking him dead in the eye.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. I trust you.” He nods at Riki, and Riki nods back.

They cut into the woods, avoiding the main road for a while. The only real plan is to put distance between themselves and the city; Gondar mentioned possibly going back to his home country, but that it was far away. Their best bet for the time being was to get across the closest border -- to the west -- and make a decision of where to go from there.

After a while of walking, the forest becomes too overgrown to pass through safely in the dark. Riki’s low-light vision is good, but nowhere near as good as Gondar’s, and he can’t handle the unfamiliar terrain with as much ease. They take the risk of walking along the edge of the main road, and for the time being, everything is fine.

Then the first shadow appears.

Gondar sees it first, and Riki only notices it after he hears his friend curse under his breath. Thirty or so feet down the road, a long shadow has stepped out in front of them. Two others follow suit.

Behind them, the sound of horse hooves; two other people ride up behind them.

“Keep your hand on your dagger,” Gondar says lowly, and Riki nods. 

The shadows ahead of them begin to move closer. Riki recognizes a few of their faces as being familiar, but can’t make out enough detail in the dark to recall a name. Gondar has no trouble, though.

“Hod.”

“Gondar,” the other man says, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “You’re walkin’ the wrong way. It’s the city what wants him.”

“Don’t be stupid about this,” Gondar warns. He tilts his dagger so that it glints in the moonlight.

“You’re the one being stupid about it,” Hod laughs. “You’d live like a king off his bounty, pardon the figure of speech.”

Gondar goes rigid beside him and for a split second, Riki is terrified that that’s all the convincing he needs to turn on him.

“The two on the horses,” Gondar whispers. “You can get them?”

“Affirmative,” Riki whispers back, at the same time relieved and angry with himself for doubting Gondar.

“You’re not about to let us walk away,” Gondar says, louder. “So draw your blade and fight. We’re in kind of a hurry.”

“You went soft,” Hod says. He and his partners draw to a halt not too far from where Riki and Gondar are standing; he spits at their feet. “Pity.”

“Now,” Gondar hisses. He springs into action.

Riki immediately turns and dives for the ground, rolling and slashing out at the legs of the closest horse. He feels sorry for the animal as he hears it cry out in pain, but it panics and bolts back toward the city, throwing its rider. The second rider immediately dismounts to help his friend and Riki springs up, giving his horse a solid slap on the flank to send it chasing after the first horse.

The second rider gives up on helping his friend and turns on him quickly. They lock blades; Riki knows he can’t win in a fair contest of strength, so at the first possible opportunity he rolls around behind the man and tries to use his size to his advantage, keeping low to dodge. The other rider manages to recover, standing up and charging -- Riki rolls out of the way again as the two men crash into each other.

He catches a brief glimpse of Gondar fighting Hod and one of his partners at the same time. The third man is already dead on the ground, blood pooling in the dirt around him.

One of the riders grabs out at his tail, jerking him back into the fight. Riki is able to break free easily and it occurs to him that they must be pulling their punches. The bounty ordered him brought in alive, and these goons must be afraid of hurting him too badly. The man he broke away from readies another strike.

Riki takes a deep breath, tightening his grip on his dagger, then throws himself in front of the blade.

It would have been a lethal strike, had the other rider not shoved his friend away at the last minute. He takes a moment to shout a warning at him and Riki takes the opportunity to dive behind him, slashing behind the man’s knees as he rolls. The warning quickly turns into a cry of pain as the man crumples over. The other rider, still recovering from being shoved, is an easy target as Riki slips behind him and steadies him with a knife in the back.

He pushes the man’s corpse down on top of his partner, who cries out again as his friend’s knife digs into his gut.

His cry is echoed by one of the other men down the road; Riki looks up in time to see Gondar slit the man’s throat and whirl to slash at Hod all in the same movement. His own momentum is turned against him, though, and Hod blocks the attack so squarely that he forces Gondar to the ground and rears back for his own attack.

Riki panics and launches forward, crashing into Hod’s side. He doesn’t weigh enough to tackle the larger man to the ground but he does jostle him enough to loosen his grip on his blade. The knife lands in the dirt by Gondar’s head with a thud. Hod roars out in frustration, easily pulling Riki off of him by the back of the shirt. He tosses him to the ground -- Riki writhes, the breath knocked out of him. His own dagger flies from his hand at the impact, skidding away in the dirt.

“They asked for you alive,” Hod says, hurrying to pick up the weapon of one of his fallen partners, “but I know I can still get something for your head.” Riki squirms in the dirt, trying to crawl backwards, but Hod puts a heavy boot down on his arm and leans on it. Riki tries to scream, but with the wind knocked out of him it just comes out as a wet gasp.

He looks back up at Hod standing over him, short sword in hand, preparing to strike. This is it. He’s going to die here in the middle of the road.

Suddenly, sharp points appear on either side of Hod’s chest, slowly pushing outward right under each of his shoulders. When the man cries out in pain, blood flies from his lips. The knives twist, and the momentum drags him to the side where he collapses on the ground. The weight on Riki’s arm lifts and standing over him is Gondar, breathing heavily and bleeding from one side of his head. He hauls Riki up by the arm that wasn’t stepped on, then turns wordlessly and kneels over Hod.

He wrenches the sword from the man’s hands, ignoring the babbled apologies and implorations as he buries the sword in his chest, silencing him.

Riki stands and watches, taking deep, gasping breaths as soon as he can breathe again. His eyes follow Gondar as he stands and moves to the treeline where he bends to pick something up -- Riki’s dagger. He wipes it off in the dirt, then comes back over and slides it into the sheath on Riki’s back.

For a split second, they just stand there and stare at each other, breathing heavily.

Then Riki grabs Gondar by the front of his shirt and pulls him down into a kiss.

He doesn’t know how it happens exactly, but it feels right to be standing in the middle of the road surrounded by dead bodies, kissing the best friend he’s ever had, the friend who just saved his life. They kiss until Riki starts to get light-headed, which more than likely has to do with the fact that he just had the wind knocked out of him moments ago. He unknots his fist from Gondar’s shirt and flattens his palm against his chest, pushing him back a little. They break apart reluctantly, breathing even heavier.

“We need to move the bodies,” Gondar says. Riki nods.

 

\---

 

They drag the bodies to the side of the road and into the trees, kicking dirt over the bloodstains. A murder on the main road isn’t going to go unnoticed, but they’ll be long gone before anyone can connect them to it. Technically, the kills were self-defense, but Riki doubts that the new government will listen to  _ him _ about it.

In the process of dragging the bodies away, they come across one of the men’s horses. Her reins are caught up on a low branch, but she appears otherwise to be calm. They both mount the horse without another thought and ride off, pressing as hard as they can, headed west.

They ride into a border village just before dawn. Gondar uses what little money he has left to buy them a room at the inn -- they can only afford one -- and ignores the weird looks that the innkeeper gives him with regards to the blood matting the fur on one side of his head. 

Riki is so tired and sore from riding so hard that he honestly wants to just curl up in bed and sleep for years, but he sits Gondar down on the edge of the bed and wipes at his wound with a cloth that he wets in the basin in the corner. Gondar hisses and shuts his eyes at the touch, but doesn’t squirm. Riki cleans him up and washes the wound as well as he can, but he’s not a doctor. He tells Gondar as much.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, gingerly touching the area around the cut. “We need to be careful about your arm though.” Riki holds the arm out to inspect it, turning it over to look at the bruises on either side.

“It hurts, but it’s not broken or sprained,” he answers. Gondar catches his hand and turns Riki’s arm back over to look at the bruise on the front. Satisfied with the assessment, he laces their fingers together and pulls Riki into a tight hug, pressing his face against his chest. Riki wraps his arms around Gondar’s neck in return, bringing his head down to rest his cheek between Gondar’s ears.

“We still have a ways to go before you’re safe,” Gondar says. Riki nods as best he can, careful not to agitate Gondar’s wound.

“I’m coming back here one day,” he answers, pulling back. Gondar’s arms loosen but still hang around his waist as Riki holds Gondar’s face carefully with both hands.

“I know,” Gondar says.

“I’m going to get revenge for what they did to my family.”

“I know,” Gondar repeats, and the serious glint in his eye matches Riki’s perfectly. “I’m with you. Until the end.”

“I know,” Riki echoes. He smiles.

“Until then, I’ve been thinking about where we should go.” Riki tilts his head. “We’re easier targets if we’re alone, just the two of us.”

“I thought we would just go lose ourselves in some city,” Riki says. Gondar nods.

“That’s always an option,” he says. “But when I went out to look for work before, there was one notice in the folder. Different from the others. A different kind of job, having something to do with a different kind of war. A little weird, but it sounds like there’s definitely money in it, and it’s far enough away.”

“I’m with you,” Riki says, smirking as he repeats Gondar’s own words. “Until the end.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo the birthday tables got turned right around and domoz, who this fic is for, has illustrated some of the scenes!! and made me cry in the process!!!!! thank you so much!!!!!!!! <33333 ;_;

 


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